


(orange is) such an awful color

by naggeluide



Series: The Anger Translators and other Tales of Awkward Communication [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - My Hero Academia Fusion, Angry Boy/Deadpan Snarker x2, Bakugou Katsuki is a Nice Boy, Battle of the Deadpan Snarkers, Crack Treated Seriously, Failure of Communication, Gen, Humor, M/M, Rated M if you speak Arabic, Todoroki Shouto is a Little Shit, and the quiet one is a chaotic gremlin, goth girl vs. goth girl, music theory pun times, silent films, tdbkweek2020, the only Flower Shop AU I'll ever write, where the angry one is an actual sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23510980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naggeluide/pseuds/naggeluide
Summary: "How about I just blow up those forms?" Katsuki gave Mai his best narrow-eyed glare. It had been likened to the red laser dots of a sniper rifle, complete with the pants-shitting side-effects.Mai stared at him like a blank Word document the night before a three-page English essay was due.Todoroki stared at Mai in a way that could be described with a similar simile.---Toph, breaking through the fourth walls of two universes to do my summary for me: Tonight, for your entertainment, I present... Avatar: the Last Airbender's Gloomy Girl Who Sighs A Lot vs. Boku No Hero Academia's Discount Zuko in... The Battle of the Deadpan Snarkers! ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE?!!
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Todoroki Shouto, Mai/Zuko (mentioned)
Series: The Anger Translators and other Tales of Awkward Communication [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1691716
Comments: 29
Kudos: 333





	(orange is) such an awful color

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct continuation to the descent into madness (pun intended) that was _The Anger Translators_ , based on one offhand comment made there, but it can be read independently as well. Enjoy!

"Hello. I'd like to cancel my weekly floral arrangement," droned Katsuki's boyfriend-of-two-and-a-half-days, but-who-was-counting-certainly-not-Katsuki-SHUT-UP Todoroki Shouto. He'd been practicing the line the entire walk over to the florist's, because he was just socially challenged like that.

The young woman behind the counter looked extremely bored. "Whatever," she monotoned back, and now _that_ was a bit creepy. Katsuki sized her up. She wasn't exceptionally tall for a teenaged girl, nor exceptionally short. Her black hair was shiny, with flat bangs that skimmed her eyebrows, and done half-up in two buns at the top of her head, and her skin was a smooth porcelain mask. Certainly not Katsuki's definition of a dangerous lady.

After a moment of eye contact so empty the vacuum of space felt overpopulated, the florist turned away from Todoroki to shuffle through a filing cabinet. When she returned with a sheaf of papers, the hair falling over her shoulders had shifted slightly, revealing her nametag. Katsuki narrowed his eyes and hoped that this Mai person wasn't planning on being difficult.

"Well that was fucking easy," he said quietly to Todoroki, whose frozen-in-place posture belied his nerves.

Katsuki had, as usual, spoken too soon.

"I'll need you to fill these forms out in triplicate," announced Mai, with the inflection of a salt plain. "Also, because you're a minor, I'll need confirmation of your address via a piece of official mail, such as an electricity bill, that has your name on it."

Todoroki gave Katsuki a Look. It was the kind that simultaneously said, _I told you so_ , and, _Usually I wouldn't say this because I'm a prideful stubborn motherfucker but this villain is ruining my day so maybe if you were coincidentally here fighting as well it wouldn't be the end of the world_. Katsuki was both extremely annoyed, and a little bit touched.

"How about I just blow up those forms?" Katsuki gave Mai his best narrow-eyed glare. It had been likened to the red laser dots of a sniper rifle, complete with the pants-shitting side-effects.

Mai stared at him like a blank Word document the night before a three-page English essay was due.

Todoroki stared at Mai in a way that could be described with a similar simile.

Katsuki knew not how long he was trapped in the fucking Twilight Zone.

Finally, Mai spoke. "How about you stop bothering me with dumb cancellation requests unless you're prepared to do what it takes to fulfill them?"

Eventually, Todoroki caved and took the papers, holding them between a thumb and forefinger as if they offended him. They sure as hell offended Katsuki.

"Have a nice day." Mai's monotone followed their backs out the door with utter disinterest. 

"What did I tell you," said Todoroki flatly, once they were in the street. "The florist here is a complete asshole."

* * *

Todoroki may have thought that he'd told Katsuki that the florist was a complete asshole, but Katsuki could not, in fact, recall any such words leaving Todoroki's mouth. Katsuki was just Todoroki's _anger_ translator, not his normal phrasings translator, because usually Todoroki just said what he meant without embellishment. Since they'd spent the majority of their short relationship either yelling or making out (Katsuki was awesome at one of those things, and getting ever more awesome at the other), it hadn't occurred to Katsuki that he should be on the lookout for other hidden meanings beneath the monotone as well.

The conversation had gone something like this.

"Help me, Bakugou, you're my only hope," Shouto had droned, and damn it but Katsuki was weak to this little two-toned chrysanthemum flowering from underneath the scorched earth of his father's ridiculous bootprints despite the odds.

"The fuck you want, Princess?" Katsuki tried to make his voice extra-tough, to compensate for his dangerous encounter with feelings.

"Princess?" Todoroki scowled.

"You're quoting Star Wars at me, and you don't know which princess I'm talking about?"

"Oh." Todoroki's brow crinkled minutely. "I thought this was Star Wars." He did something with his fingers, changed whatever it was, and then held them up.

Katsuki nearly blew off that flaming hand of blasphemy. "The hell, Icyhot, that's Star _Trek_ , get it through your thick skull!"

As if he was going to help Todoroki with anything now, the bastard clearly hadn't listened to Katsuki's impassioned rant on the subject last week, or Deku's five-thousand-word-per-minute mumbled monologue either. The idiot obviously needed to spend his afternoon in remedial cultural training.

"I see," said Todoroki, in the flat tone of one who didn't. "Anyway, I need your help to cancel the florist."

And Katsuki was a Big Damn Hero, damn it, which was why he found himself asking, "Can't you do it yourself? What do you need me for?" instead of straight up telling Todoroki to fuck off.

"I don't need you in particular, but I do need someone who's an asshole."

Katsuki's mother had always told him that the most valuable trait in a romantic partner was someone who could see you as you truly were, and that was the only thing that kept Katsuki from dumping Shouto on the spot. That, and the fact that he would then have to verbally admit that they were dating, which was a no-go.

"Bitch, just go yourself then," he shot back instead.

"You don't understand," said Todoroki. "The florist preys on all of my deepest, darkest social anxieties."

"So how am I supposed to make this better?" asked Katsuki. Just because he had a slightly different set of social anxieties than Todoroki? What were they trying to do, give this person a balanced diet?

"You're very intimidating," Todoroki stated flatly, and Katsuki almost blushed at the flattery. The things that came out of that mouth sometimes!

"Ugh, what the fuck, FINE," shouted Katsuki, flustered, and flustered at being flustered.

In retrospect, if anyone had been called a complete asshole that day, it had been Katsuki, not the florist. So really, how could he have known?

* * *

"This is a forgery," said Mai, barely glancing at the paper before listlessly poking it back at them, expending the minimum effort possible.

("Just fucking fake it," Katsuki had advised, after chewing Todoroki out for not knowing what an electric bill looked like. He'd instead printed out a text from Kaminari that said, "Yo, Todobroki, you owe me ¥500 for that milkshake."

Todoroki had predictably gone to Momo next, and acquired a finely calligraphed certificate on a sheet of actual parchment that had Maxwell's equations prominently displayed in the center.

Katsuki had not blown it up, out of respect to Momo's hard work (although he'd debated doing so for a long time, because she could also use a lesson in Real Life), and taken an old bill from his parents' recycling the next time he'd gone home. Now it had Todoroki's name and address carefully substituted into a scan of the document.)

"It is a perfectly legitimate document," replied Todoroki, with an impressively equal amount of boredom.

"I don't know what could possibly have given you that idea."

"Most likely the electric company. Who issued the bill in the first place."

"With an address on the poor side of town --"

"HEY!" shouted Katsuki, offended. "Not fucking cool!"

"-- that does not match the billing address on your customer records."

"We moved." Todoroki's tone was permanently placed at a baritone C, clashing horribly with Mai's alto C sharp. It grated on Katsuki's hearing for a minor second, and on his nerves for a major one.

"Look, can we just cut the crap?" he finally burst out. "It doesn't take a goddamned genius to figure out a solution. You, Mai, make one less flower arrangement every week, and Todoroki stops giving you money."

"Are you supposed to be the smart one, then?" asked Mai, supremely bored. "I thought you were both the dumb and pretty one."

"HEY!" Katsuki was confused, pleased, and confused about being pleased. He glanced at Todoroki, who looked slightly bewildered underneath his usual blank expression.

"That is an adequate solution." Todoroki, ever the supportive boyfriend, backed up Katsuki's well-thought-out and logical compromise.

"This is an inadequate forgery," said Mai, gesturing again to the document, which she clearly had not even read.

Well fuck that shit, Mai didn't know who she was up against. "You don't need any proof of address," hissed Katsuki. "You're just being a little shit, aren't you? I should know because I'm with one." He stabbed a finger in Todoroki's direction.

"Thanks, dear," muttered the little shit in question, who had barely avoided being poked in the eye.

Mai, much to Katsuki's eternal annoyance, looked just as interested in him as she had at the start of this whole mess. "I think I do know, since I just broke up with one," she countered. "Ten out of ten would recommend." She cast a pointed glance between him and Todoroki.

Katsuki seethed, wanting very much to explode the whole damn flower shop and its attendant with it. "You don't know --" he began.

"He's also an angsty mess with fire powers and a burn scar over his left eye," continued Mai, as if Katsuki hadn't even spoken. "So if you're thinking to win pity points with a tragic backstory, don't bother. I've heard all of it before."

Katsuki seriously doubted that. This was Class 2-fucking-A they talking about, she had no idea the shit they'd all gone through, much less the scale of childhood trauma that Todoroki's very presence in the class made logarithmic.

"Listen here, _Mai_ , his dad's the living embodiment of a flaming trash can so it's gonna be next to impossible for him to bring proof of address."

Mai calmly raised an eyebrow, supremely unsurprised, and waited.

Katsuki felt a nudge disturbing his one-sided stare-down, and his eyes flicked instinctively towards his boyfriend. Damn it, he'd lost the battle of wills, and Katsuki _hated_ losing.

"How do you know that?" asked the inconsiderate bastard, in a low voice, and Katsuki snorted.

"I looked at him once."

"Oh. Indeed, a logical conclusion."

"Remember what I said about breakups," volunteered Mai, with a modicum of interest now that she was in no danger of improving anyone's life. "They're very freeing, especially of the other person's emotional baggage."

"Fuck you, I can carry around enough baggage for the both of us," shouted Katsuki, finally losing his temper. He flipped Mai the bird, grabbed Shouto's hand and stomped out of the shop before he could blow it sky-high. A soft _thunk_ sounded as a knife sunk into the wooden door swinging shut behind them.

They were halfway down the street when Todoroki, never one to hold back his intrinsic weirdness for the sake of Katsuki's rage, asked: "Is emotional baggage supposed to be a good thing?"

It wasn’t, but since Katsuki knew it was one of the things that Todoroki was unfairly good at, he didn't answer. "Shut up, you're coming to play ice-maker on the training field so I can blow shit up."

Todoroki's deadpan voice reminded Katsuki entirely too much of a certain florist as he expressed his enthusiasm. "Violence, woo."

* * *

Katsuki had a tried-and-true battle strategy. Identify problem, blow problem to smithereens, repeat as necessary.

This strategy did not, apparently, extend to florists, so it was time to go to his second-most-preferred strategy -- the one which might, if he cared to think about it (he absolutely did not), explain how he and Todoroki always worked surprisingly well together.

It was time to fight fire with fire. Or, one goth girl with another goth girl.

"Nope," declared Jirou, unplugging her earphone jacks from the nearby wall. "She's literally sharpening a thousand knives in there. That woman can smell my fears and, although I am glad you are bought in to the badass image I project, I am actually a Nice Girl at heart."

Katsuki snorted. "Only badass until I tell everyone else that you're afraid of someone who sells fucking _flowers_ for a living."

Jirou's eyes narrowed. "And you aren't going to do anything to ruin that image, because you, Bakugou," and here she leaned in close to whisper into his ear, "are a Nice Boy." With that, she left.

"What'd she do, offer you sexual favors?" Todoroki sounded bored. It pissed Katsuki off almost as much as his stupid statement.

"No, you dumbass," he snapped. "If I'm getting any sexual favors they're coming from you. Consensually, 'cuz that's how fucking works."

"Oh. That issue didn't arise when I googled how to be a good anger translator." Todoroki tilted his head slightly, considering. "Although I did learn to speak Arabic. Or about ten phrases of it, anyway."

He looked deep into Katsuki's eyes and said, "تمتص ديك بلدي "

"The hell, Half-'n-Half, you can't even Internet right," grumbled Katsuki. "And, uh. Damn it. You know we don't have to do shit if it makes you uncomfortable. Or even, you know. If you don't want to. Especially if." Damn, but this _conversation_ was uncomfortable, and Katsuki didn't want to have it, so by his own principles he should stop.

"Oh," said Todoroki, looking suddenly very much out of his depth, and probably, if past experience was to be counted on, about to say something simultaneously extremely stupid and embarrassing.

"Come on." Katsuki saw fit to forestall the apocalypse. "I would literally rather get stabbed by a hundred knives than talk about this like mature human beings."

"Oh thank God, me too," agreed Todoroki, following him into the flower shop.

Katsuki still wasn't sure what love felt like, but it might have been something like this.

* * *

"All right, flower girl," growled Katsuki, slamming his hands down on the counter.

Mai didn't even have the decency to tremble with the furniture as she leaned on it.

"Let's revisit the details of this contract."

"Took you long enough," she sighed.

"To do what?" asked Todoroki.

"To learn how to read."

Katsuki did not blow up the contract, because he could see how that would prove her point. Instead, he started what he came in here to avoid in the first place: a conversation like a mature human being.

This might have been the hardest thing he'd ever done. Todoroki had better be fucking grateful.

"'The undersigned agrees to pay ¥20000 for an arrangement from the _Sympathies from your peers that you have once again been harassed by the Workplace/Class Perv_ collection, with an accompanying card featuring quotes from powerful women, to be delivered weekly to the UA Heights Alliance,'" Katsuki read. His eyes scanned across a few additional columns. "'Don't flatter yourself, you were never even a player'? How is that fucking inspirational?" he wondered, before turning his glare on Todoroki.

"Oi, Halfie. She's way overcharging you, no way is a dumb bouquet worth this much."

"It isn't?" Todoroki almost showed surprise at that revelation. "Oh well, it's a tax write-off anyway."

"How the fuck do you not know what a electric bill looks like but you know which purchase categories are tax write-offs?" screamed Katsuki. "Fucking rich kids, I tell you. How the hell did you get swindled into this deal in the first place?"

Katsuki could certainly imagine what had happened, but not in any setting resembling real life. For some reason, a jumpy reel of black-and-white footage popped into his mind, depicting Todoroki in a straw boating hat and pants made of entirely too much material, approaching Mai, whose dress had too many ruffles at the shoulders and hips to have been fashionable in the last five hundred years. They stared emptily at each other, only the odd flecks marring the film indicating that it was still rolling.

A statement in copperplate, bordered with elaborate curlicues, interrupted the picture, proclaiming: Madam, I would like to order some flowers.

Back in the picture, neither expression had changed, but the film cut again to reveal the word: Whatever.

After some boring footage of Todoroki filling out a form with a fountain pen, the camera highlighted the faintest furrow of black-and-white eyebrows, as old-timey Todoroki gave Mai a pointed look. Why are they so expensive?

Mai's unfeeling mug almost exactly resembled the cameo brooch on her dress. There's an extra tax for assholes.

So you pay extra too?

Yes. Mai's shoulder ruffles twitched in annoyance.

Todoroki's smugness was entirely contained in the jaunty angle of his stupid hat. At least you're self aware.

Mai stared directly into camera. So I am.

"That's almost exactly what happened," confirmed Todoroki.

Bullshit, thought Katsuki. "You two managed all that _with words?_ "

"No," said Mai, almost reluctantly. "I have a friend who says that her Quirk is reading auras --"

Katsuki scoffed. "Auras aren't real."

Todoroki threw him a blank look, utterly scandalized.

"Shut up, you think the earth is flat, of course you believe in auras," accused Katsuki.

"-- which don't exist," Mai droned on. "And besides, her Quirk is hyperflexibility. But anyway. She translated."

Katsuki huffed. It made sense, he supposed, that deadpan translators existed too.

"Okay, so if we can't fucking cancel or reduce the price," Katsuki got back on track with his bargaining. "Can we have them delivered to a different address?"

"Yes."

Katsuki couldn't stop little explosions from popping off his palms as he screamed at her. "WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE???!!!"

"You didn't ask," chorused Mai and Todoroki, that traitor. Katsuki ought to break up with the fucker and let them have each other and the existential boredom that would entail. But he was a hero, damn it, he couldn't do that to anyone, much less someone as helplessly gay as Todoroki Shouto.

"Where should we send the flowers instead?" asked Todoroki, completely unaware how close he'd just been to entering the seventh circle of hell. "Your mother?"

Caught by surprise, Katsuki reacted on instinct. "I'm not sending weekly flowers to the old hag."

"My mother wouldn't want them anyway," said Mai, placidly.

"Heh." Katsuki couldn't help a bark of surprised laughter at that, as much as he detested the idea of having anything in common with Mai. "I was talking about _my_ mother. What about yours, Icyhot?"

… And maybe that wasn't the safest topic to bring up, but Katsuki had never exactly been one to play it safe.

"I already bring her flowers when I visit her every week." Todoroki's monotone implied that he was offended that Katsuki thought he didn't.

"What about Aizawa's kid?" suggested Katsuki next. Turns out there was a very short list of people he knew whose lives might possibly be improved by something as trivial as flowers.

"Shinsou?"

"No, idiot, the actual child."

"Ah. Present Mic."

"The girl, dumbass!" shouted Katsuki, having reached his patience quota for the week.

"Oh, Eri," said Todoroki. "You don't have a mean nickname for her, do you? That's sweet."

Katsuki was not sweet, thank you very much, even if nitroglycerin tasted that way. "Yeah, that one."

"Put down the address here," said Mai, entirely uninterested in their exchange. "Do you want to take the arrangement scheduled for delivery tomorrow with you when you leave?"

Katsuki's eyes narrowed, trying to sense if this was a trap.

"Sure," answered his oblivious boyfriend, making Katsuki want to scream at him. Again.

It was absolutely a trap; the bouquet Mai handed Todoroki was an eyesore of tiger lilies, tulips, and marigolds that would have overjoyed any Dutch football fan. The design sense that Katsuki had reluctantly absorbed from his parents was extremely offended.

Even Todoroki, who had no sense of design if his clothing choices were to be judged, agreed. "Orange is such an awful color," he droned, picking at a tulip as they walked back to UA.

"Hah?" challenged Katsuki. The color wasn't the problem with the arrangement, any dumbass could see that. "Orange is a great color! Are you trying to say something about my hero costume, you sideways Polish flag?"

"I'm not trying, I'm just saying."

"Dumb Half-'n-half," huffed Katsuki. "Anyway, even me wearing a 'horrible' accent color doesn't stop you from having the hots for me."

"Half," Todoroki blinked placidly. "I'm only half-hot for you, Bakugou."

"Screw you, strawberry shortcake!" Katsuki spluttered. Since when was Todoroki allowed to have a sense of humor?

"Bakugou, you know that I'm taller than you."

Katsuki let out a scream of rage at the unfeeling universe that allowed that ugly truth to exist, squeezing his eyes so tightly together that he started to see spots.

When he opened them, Todoroki was looking down (ugh, fuck Katsuki's life) at him with a shitty look of fondness or whatever. "You're so beautiful when you hate the world."

"I don't hate _you_ ," Katsuki grumbled reluctantly, momentarily stunned. The shit that came out of that bastard's mouth, honestly. You'd think he would have gotten used to it by now.

But nothing could prepare Katsuki for what happened next, when a small smile ghosted across Todoroki's face. "I don't hate you, too."

**Author's Note:**

> Spot the music theory puns
> 
> In this AU, Zuko is the vigilante the Blue Spirit, part of the White Lotus group that also includes the Blind Bandit, the Painted Lady, and Suki. Together, the manage much more crime and (accidental, unless you ask Toph) murder than the actual League of Villains.
> 
> I had so much fun writing this, in case you couldn't tell ;)
> 
> ... the Copperplate font doesn't seem to show up correctly on mobile, sorry about that.


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